Old Fashioned Kidney Bean Salad
Colorful, crunchy and fresh, this deliciously easy Old Fashioned Kidney Bean Salad makes a perfect cold side dish and takes just a few minutes to make. 
This easy bean salad has such a fond place in my memories. When I was a little girl you could be certain you’d find a bowl of this tangy, crunchy cold salad at the little country church potlucks I attended with my grandma.
Check out my other church potluck favorites:
Kidney bean salad takes just a handful of ingredients and transforms them into such a colorful and filling side dish. And it’s a great way to use up those hardboiled eggs you might have leftover from Easter. (Note my pretty shiny Easter eggs!)
To make Old Fashioned Kidney Bean Salad you’ll need:
2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup sweet pickles, chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/2 cup of Miracle Whip or mayo
Now let’s talk about some of these ingredients, substitutions and additions.
1) It doesn’t matter what color kidney beans you use. Dark red, light red, whatever your preference is fine! Shoot, you could even substitute in black beans or whatever canned bean you’ve got and it would probably still be tasty.
2) I like chopping up sweet pickles for my kidney bean salad because I like getting an actual bite of pickle in my salad. Feel free to substitute sweet pickle relish instead and make things even easier.
3) The dressing. You can use your preference of Miracle Whip or mayo. I know a lot of people feel very strongly about this one. Use what your taste buds like. Whatever you use, it’s going to mix in with the egg yolks and will give the salad a dressing that has a taste similar to a deviled egg. So I suggest using whatever you use to make your deviled eggs. I like both, but I think Miracle Whip tastes the best in this salad.
4) Sometimes I also add about 1/2 cup cubed cheddar cheese to this salad. It makes a great addition.
This cold salad goes great with sandwiches, burgers, like my Juicy Burger loose meat sandwiches, and leftover Easter ham! Hope you’ll enjoy this old fashioned blast from the past as much as I do.
Old Fashioned Kidney Bean Salad
Ingredients
- 2 15 ounce cans of kidney beans
- 2 stalks celery (chopped)
- 1/2 cup chopped sweet onion
- 1/4 cup chopped sweet pickle
- 3 hard boiled eggs (chopped)
- 1/2 cup Miracle Whip or Mayo
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- First drain and rinse off your kidney beans.
- Add the kidney beans to a medium sized bowl along with the chopped celery, onion, sweet pickles, hard boiled eggs, and Miracle Whip.
- Stir to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Will stay fresh in the fridge for several days. Just cover tightly with plastic wrap.
Notes
- Use whatever color kidney beans you have on hand, light red or dark red.
- Sweet pickle relish may be substituted for the chopped sweet pickles.
- Either Miracle Whip or mayo can be used for the dressing, use your preference.
I can’t wait to make this. I grew up on this in the Midwest. I think I will make some breaded tenderloin fritters to go with it. Memories of my childhood.
My grandma made this recipe when I was little and it was great. I looked for the recipe online and couldn’t find it, until now. Thank you for posting this and thank you for the memory.
I love the recipe. I added small cubed cheddar cheese and additional sweet pickle. It was a delish and filling lunch for during the work week.
Love this recipe. Delicious! This is mainly my snack instead of the mini heresy bar!
Perfect …I immediately knew this was the recipe and i easily made half for me to sample.
Any new recipe I find d is great. I love beans of all kind and 5his is right up my alley.
Judy March 22,2022 8:50 pm
This is the salad from my past wasn’t sure about the
ingredient’s so looked it up and yours was the first one I came to, as soon as I read it I knew it was the one. Made
it right away and it was just as I remembered. So glad I
found this. It’s funny that a salad like this is known by so
many.I just wouldn’t have thought it was surprised I thought it was something my family made up.
Than k You
So many d*mned adds the recipe couldn’t be seen – it kept jumping around and couldn’t see it. Also the ingredients only showed probably the last 3. Waste of time coming to this site. I have now blocked it!
Hi Rich! You know in the 7 years that I’ve been doing this, yours is the first comment I’ve had to edit swear words out of because I don’t like that garbage on my website. It’s also the first complaint I’ve ever had about ads. Seriously. Unfortunately this website costs a lot of money to run, so I can’t just give recipes away for nothing. I can’t pay thousands of dollars for the world to enjoy Kidney Bean Salad if I don’t have lights or electricity! Ads are the way I balance that out and keep my bills paid. I understand it’s frustrating to some people and that’s why that handy “Jump to Recipe” button is at the top of the page, so you don’t have to deal with them!
Best wishes and hope you find that bean salad since you’ve blocked this website!
Amy D.
@Amy D, LOVE YOUR SITE!!!!!
My grandmother used to make this salad. I have looking for the recipe for years! She also put macaroni noodle it it!
Hi Michele! Glad you found it and and hope it brought back some happy memories for you.
This brings back memories. This was one of my dad’s favorite summer salads and as a child I always picked the beans and eggs out and ate them. As an adult, I made this in memory of my dad and sitting here eating it, I think this is something that if you grew up with it and it’s familiar, you’ll like it. While I ate it all, it isn’t a dish I’d let take up valuable real estate on a buffet table. I feel like I kept eating it more for nostalgia’s sake. I’m pretty sure my mom used Miracle Whip to make it and I used mayo so with the tangy zip of Miracle Whip, it would be exactly like I remember.
I’ve been making this for years but use dill relish instead of the sweet variety. I love to serve this with fish.
WOW! This looks EXACTLY like the delicious salad my mom made when we were young. I cant wait to try it. Thank you so much for this. It certainly brings back memories of growing up in the Midwest.
Exactly like my Mom made. Thank you!
I remember this wonderful side salad from my earliest years (I’m 89). It always evokes a slower pace of life. My Gramma made it very frequently during the warm summer months. Then, my Mom made it. I’ve been making kidney bean salad for decades. There is just something about kidney beans and sweet pickles or sweet pickle relish that zings your taste buds! Thanks for publishing the recipe.
I can’t believe I found this wonderful recipe. I have not had this for years and thought several times that I would try to make. Now looking at it this is exactly the same ingredients my mother used. I can’t wait to try it.
Thank you
Hope that it brings back lots of good memories for you Kathy! Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment.
-Amy
Thanks for this blast from the past! My sister and I made this together for dinner tonight, on the phone, cross country. It was so fun! Why have we never thought to make dinner together on the phone before? Thanks again!